Hello/Labas! I'm Andrew Kapochunas (Andrius Kapočiūnas, born in the Lithuanian-Estonian Displaced Persons camp in Kempten - Allgäu, Germany) and this site reflects my interest in maps of the historic Lithuanian area:"The Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania," 1569 - 1791, followed by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania within the "Polish Republic," 1791-1795. At one point it covered 400,000 square miles and was the largest country in Europe. According to Steven Seegel, in his 2012 "Mapping Europe's Borderlands," it "...comprised parts of 14 Central and East European countries -- Austria, Belarus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, the Slovak Republic, and Ukraine..." My focus here is the area represented today by the three Baltic republics, eastern Poland, the Kaliningrad Oblast,and Belarus -- if you or your ancestors are from these areas, you will find maps here of interest.

What hasn't existed, before this site, is a single source for:

Information on mapmakers of this historic Lithuanian area

Historic-Lithuanian-area map images, sorted by date depicted, published from 1507 to 1954

Ethnographic maps of the historic Lithuanian area from pre-history to World War II

Political maps of Europe showing Lithuania and/or Poland

The history that explains the shifting boundaries of Lithuania

Sites selling historic and contemporary maps of the historic Lithuanian area

Biographies of mapmakers of this area, hotlinked to their maps

Global auctions and fairs for historic-Lithuanian-area maps

Totals to date:

3,349 unique maps showing the historic-Lithuanian area; many in high definition; all in downloadable jpegs

853 additional higher-magnification detail images of those maps

564 topographic maps from the 19th century onwards showing the area in fine detail

213 historical maps of the Lithuanian area -- maps created and published long after the time depicted

186 political maps of Europe from 900 to 1942 showing Lithuania and/or Poland

60 mapmaker biographies, many with illustrations and analyses of their maps

44 hotlinks to additional map resources, including upcoming map fairs

43 sea charts of the Baltic, 1584 - 1944, focusing on the sea around Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia

21 playing/collectible cards with images of maps

0 advertisements or items for sale: this site is 100% educational

February 16 adds: 7 maps; 2 detail images of those maps; 1 town view; 1 new mapmaker biography, solving widespread dating inconsistencies of a map of Poland and Prussia, a plate originally created and engraved by Johann Stridbeck II in 1700. On his death in 1716 the plate was acquired and renamed by Gabriel Bodenehr. On his death, the plate was acquired, renamed and published in 1757 by Georg Kilian. I've had to rearrange and re-date five erroneously dated map images

Next update: March 2

Where do visitors to this site come from? As of this week, visitors' countries of origin:1. USA: 24.3%; 2. Lithuania: 21.7%; 3. Latvia: 18.2%; 4. Russia: 7.7%; 5. Other: 28.1%

1762 [dated] Robert de Vaugondy (mapmaker/publisher): "ROYAUME de POLOGNE" (2.3 MB), in a third version of the first state. Engraved by E. Dussy and cartouche by Arrivet

1782 Fielding (publisher) - Cary (engraver): "POLAND, shewing the claims of AUSTRIA, RUSSIA &PRUSSIA" (382 KB), London, in a third version, none of which were colored to actually depict the territorial claims mentioned in the title, which refers to the First, 1772, Partition

1939 Abteilung für Kriegskarten und Vermeßungswesen (Dept. of War Maps and Surveys) (publisher): "POLEN"(8.8 MB), at 1: 1 000 000, depicting most of Lithuania and northern Czechoslovakia, with boundary lines between Poland and Czechoslovakia for Dec. 10, 1938, and April 4, 1939. Why show such boundaries? Given that neither Poles nor Czechoslovaks were happy with the post-WWI boundary between them, Germany's demands, and ultimate annexation of the Sudetenland in 1938, the Polish leader, Colonel Józef Beck, believed that Warsaw should act rapidly to forestall the German occupation of an important railway junction: Bohumin (Polish: Bogumin). At noon on September 30, Poland gave an ultimatum to the Czechoslovak government, demanded the immediate evacuation from Bohumin of Czechoslovak troops and police, giving Prague until noon the following day. Fifteen minutes before the deadline, the Czechoslovak foreign ministry called the Polish ambassador in Prague and told him that Poland could have what it wanted. The Polish Army, commanded by General Władysław Bortnowski, annexed an area of 801.5 km² with a population of 227,399. Germany was happy to sacrifice a small provincial rail center to Poland in exchange for the propaganda benefits: it spread the blame of the partition of the Republic of Czechoslovakia, and made Poland a participant in the process. Poland was accused of being an accomplice of Nazi Germany. Amid the general euphoria in Poland – the annexation was very popular – no one paid attention to the bitter comment of the Czechoslovak general who handed the region over to the incoming Poles. He predicted that it would not be long before the Poles would themselves be handing the annexed area over to the Germans. Soviet Prime Minister Molotov denounced the Poles as "Hitler's jackals," and Winston Churchill, in his postwar memoirs, compared Germany and Poland to vultures landing on the dying carcass of Czechoslovakia, and lamented that "over a question so minor as [the territorial acquisition, the Poles] sundered themselves from all those friends in France, Britain and the United States who had lifted them once again to a national, coherent life, and whom they were soon to need so sorely...It is a mystery and tragedy of European history that a people capable of every heroic virtue...as individuals, should repeatedly show such inveterate faults in almost every aspect of their governmental life." Commentary from wikipedia

(MapsLithuaniaInEurope):

1595 Ortelius (mapmaker): "EVROPAE" (1.5 MB), Antwerp, the 1st edition, inaccurately colored, showing geographic ignorance: "Litvania" is colored as a single unit with "Livonia, "Moskovia" and part of "Polonia," which has its eastern part colored as part of "Germania." Ortelius' inputs: Mercator and his map of Europe; Magnus and his map of Scandinavia, including the eastern Baltic coast; Jenkinson for his map of European Russia -- uploaded to this site this week. See Ortelius' 2nd edition on the same page, and note the telltale cursive writing above Africa

(MapsRussiaInEurope):

1562 [dated] Jenkinson (British navigator/merchant/astronomer/cartographer) - Reynolds (engraver): "Nova absolvtaqve Rvssiӕ, Moscoviӕ et Tartariӕ..." (2.4 MB), London, along with detail images of the cartouche (310 KB) and the Australian coat-of-arms (286 KB) -- the map was sponsored by an Australian). "Livonia" and Litvania" are labeled at the extreme left-hand part of the map, with Smolensk's position unclear in this image. In four sheets, the huge map (82 x 102 cm / 32 x 40 inches) was based partly on his personal travels through the Ottoman Empire, Russia (facilitated by czar Ivan the Terrible), and Persia, as well as on information from previous travelers in those regions: Anton Wied, Sigismund Herberstein, William Borough, and others. This map was long thought lost until a copy was bought in 1987 by a student in a Polish bookstore as a present for his teacher! It was copied most faithfully by Ortelius, but also used by de Jode and others in maps of Europe and European Russia

A paper on the map and the source for the image: http://journals.openedition.org/belgeo/8827#tocto1n7

c1570-92 Ortelius (mapmaker): "Rvssiae, Moscoviae et Tartariae..." (1 MB), giving credit to Jenkinson's 1562 map in the cartouche -- misinterpreted by sources, including wikipedia, that Ortelius' map is from 1562. In this version of Jenkinson's map, Smolensk is incorrectly part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania

1593 de Jode (mapmaker): "MOSCOVIÆ MAXIMI AM PLISSIMI QVE DVCATVS..." (3.5 MB), credited to Jenkinson in the cartouche, from the Russian atlas "Украина на старинных картах.""LITVANIÆ PARS" is on the extreme left border, and "Smolensko" appears correctly in "Moscoviӕ"

(TownViewsN-U):

c1640 Merian (artist): "Revalia - Reveln" (255 KB), Frankfurt, in an early view of the city that would become Tallinn

When viewing this site repeatedly, ALWAYS RELOAD/REFRESH (or try "Ctrl" + "F5") BEFORE VIEWING SO THAT YOU DON'T SEE AN OLD, CACHED, VERSION!

1773 Robert Sayer (pubisher): "The Troelfth Cake (also the The Twelfth Cake, The Royal Cake, The Cake of Kings, from the French: Le gâteau des rois, Polish: Kołacz królewski, Placek królewski) is a 1773 French allegory and satire for the First Partition of Poland. It is likely that the original title in English was intended to say "The Twelfth Cake," alluding to the division of a King Cake (also called a Twelfth Cake), but corrupted in later reprints.There are at least four variants of this drawing, most common in the form of an engraving, but also as at least one colorpainting; the original was likely drawn by Jean-Michel Moreau le Jeune and engraved by Nicolas Noël Le Mire (although another source calls them merely the authors of the most famous variant). The Troelfth Cake shows the rulers of the three countries that participated in the partition tearing apart a map of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The outer figures demanding their share are Catherine II of Russia and Frederick II of Prussia. Catherine is glaring at her former lover, the Polish king Stanisław August Poniatowski, and (in some variants of the engraving) Frederick is pointing to Danzig (Gdańsk) with a sword (although Prussia acquired the territories around it, Gdańsk still remained with the Commonwealth). The inner figure on the right is the Habsburg Emperor Joseph II. On his left is the beleaguered Stanisław August Poniatowski, who (in some variants of the engraving) is experiencing difficulty keeping his crown on his head, and in another, has already lost it. Above the scene is Pheme (with manifestos from the partitioning powers in the German variant). The drawing gained notoriety in contemporary Europe; its distribution was banned in several European countries, including France. This ban, and associated penalties, meant that many variants of this work have been anonymous. (From Wikipedia)